Business News - Global Crossing Kicks Off New Wholesale Products, Announces Strategy

By Tara Seals

Posted: 04/2001

Global Crossing Kicks Off New Wholesale
Products, Announces Strategy
By Tara Seals

Global Crossing Ltd. (www.globalcrossing.com)
announced its new global positioning strategy and launched the latest additions
to its wholesale portfolio at CompTel’s 20th Anniversary Conference in Orlando,
Fla. New products include metro networks, burstable IP capacity, fast and
gigabit Ethernet access options, and enhancements to "uCommand," a
customer relationship management (CRM) tool.

According to Tony Palma, vice president of carrier marketing, this year will
be "a year of execution" for Global Crossing. While its network is 85
percent built out, Palma says it will be complete by the end of the second
quarter.

In addition, the carrier has structured its global business in four main
markets to reflect a centralized approach. Operations in Asia, Europe, Latin
America and North America will be consolidated under one team and supported by a
group of global systems, including billing, troubleshooting and customer care.
While Palma acknowledges the obstacles of language, regulatory concerns and
currency system interfaces, he says, "Our products are in demand
everywhere, and we’re confident in our success as the first truly global
carrier."

Target markets include competitive carriers and resellers, incumbents,
"next-generation" companies and "global accounts" with top
carriers such as Concert (www.concert.com),
Telecom Italia SpA (www.telecomitalia.it)
and Qwest Communications International Inc. (www.qwest.com).

With the rollout of metro fiber, Global Crossing expects to give customers
turnkey, premises-to-premises solutions with swifter provisioning intervals,
more competitive pricing, better reliability and faster repair times.

The carrier has lit intracity SONET and fiber rings in Atlanta, Chicago,
Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Newark, N.J.; Philadelphia, San Jose,
Calif.; San Francisco and Washington, D.C., as well as in six European cities.
The carrier has buildouts planned for a total of 30 cities.

In the United States, capacity options run from DS-1 to OC-48, with E-1,
STM-1 and STM-4 planned for the future. In Europe, options include E-1, E-3,
STM-1, STM-4 and STM-16. The carrier also has limited availability for 2.5gbps
and/or 10gbps wavelengths, and gigabit Ethernet.

Burstable IP is a usage-based billing alternative for dedicated Internet
access. The option gives customers an amount of guaranteed bandwidth but offers
the flexibility to add a "burst" of port capacity speed when needed.
Customers are billed on the 95th percentile of usage during a particular billing
cycle, and so only are billed for the extra capacity if they use it.

In addition to standard Internet-access options, and in conjunction with
collocation, Global Crossing will offer 100mbps fast Ethernet and 1gbps gigabit
Ethernet connections. The Ethernet options provide customers with reduced
equipment costs and an ease of management, the company says.

UCommand, a web-based account management tool, gives customers a "big
picture" view of their network operations, with aggregate statistics and
summary reports regarding usage and trend analysis. Daily information is
consolidated into weekly and monthly views. Bandwidth utilization summaries are
shown in tables and graphs.

Customers also can place orders and view invoices online. Services include
real-time orders for private line, IP and wavelength offerings, and real-time
provisioning for automatic number identifications (ANIs), toll-free numbers and
calling cards. Online ordering for international private line will be the next
addition, the company says.

New security features in uCommand are on the way, including the ability to
designate more than one administrator in a hierarchical structure, so that
responsibilities can be distributed by region, division, subsidiary and so on.

As for other future plans, Global Crossing says it will continue to expand
its capacity product portfolio, with services such as 10 gigabit wavelengths
scheduled for rollout midyear.